1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a test apparatus and an electronic device. Particularly, the present invention relates to a test apparatus that tests a device under test and an electronic device including a test circuit.
2. Related Art
Generally, there may be a case that a test pattern having a predetermined logic pattern is generated and inputted to a device under test in order to test the device under test such as a semiconductor circuit. For example, a test to determine whether the device under test normally operates can be performed by writing a predetermined logic value to a memory region in the device under test and reading the written logic pattern.
A pattern generating section that generates a test pattern based on pattern data and sequence data has been known. The pattern generating section sequentially reads the pattern data and the sequence data stored in the main memory and stores the same in the cache memory.
Here, the following documents have been known as the related art documents of the pattern generating section:    1. International Publication (WO) 2004/109307 brochure    2. International Publication (WO) 1998/23968 brochure    3. Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 8-94724    4. Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 10-78476
As described above, the pattern generating section generates a test pattern based on the data previously stored in the main memory. Therefore, when longer test pattern is generated, larger main memory may be required for the pattern generating section. However, the cost is increased in order to increase a memory capacity. Thus, a method is desired for generating longer test pattern without increasing the memory capacity.
Meanwhile, the speed of transferring data from the main memory to the cache memory often becomes a bottleneck for the operating speed of the pattern generating section. Therefore, even if the same test pattern is generated, it is desired that the amount of transferring data from the main memory to the cache memory is reduced as far as possible.